How to tame a sugar glider

Alex's Mobs Unofficial Wiki

Sugar Glider

Sugar Gliders are passive mobs that can be found in Birch Forest biomes.

Behavior[]

Sugar Gliders mostly walk, but will occasionally use their winged arms to glide.

Baby Sugar Gliders cannot glide.

Sugar Gliders have the ability to climb walls.

Taming[]

Sugar Gliders can be tamed by feeding them Sweet Berries.

Tamed Sugar Gliders can be set to three modes:

• Follow: Makes the Sugar Glider follow its owner.
• Stay: Makes the Sugar Glider stay in place.
• Wander: Makes the Sugar Glider walk around aimlessly.

Tamed Sugar Gliders cannot attack mobs.

Tamed Sugar Gliders can be placed on the player's head by shift right-clicking, causing the Sugar Glider to give its owner Slow Falling.

Leaf Foraging[]

A tamed adult Sugar Glider standing on a Leaf Block will occasionally forage in an attempt to obtain items, although the result is not guaranteed.

Sugar Gliders can find:

Breeding[]

Tamed Sugar Gliders can be bred with Honeycomb.

Feeding two tamed Sugar Gliders Honeycomb causes them to enter love mode and eventually, one of the Sugar Gliders will spawn a baby Sugar Glider.

Sounds[]

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

A Sugar Glider in a Birch Forest.

Handling Sugar Gliders: Taming vs Bonding (Behavior Insights)

Discover the surprising difference between taming and bonding sugar gliders and how it affects their behavior.

Contents

1. What are the Best Bonding Techniques for Sugar Gliders?
2. How Can Trust Building Exercises Help with Handling Sugar Gliders?
3. Is Treat Training Effective for Taming and Bonding with Sugar Gliders?
4. What Handling Skills Should You Develop to Successfully Tame and Bond with Your Sugar Glider?
5. The Importance of Behavioral Observations when Handling and Caring for your Pet Sugar Glider
6. Common Mistakes And Misconceptions

What are the Best Bonding Techniques for Sugar Gliders?

How Can Trust Building Exercises Help with Handling Sugar Gliders?

Overall, trust building exercises can be a helpful tool in handling sugar gliders. However, it is important to approach the process with patience, consistency, and an understanding of sugar glider behavior and psychology. Using positive reinforcement, training tools, and communication cues can also aid in the process. It is important to be mindful of potential risks, such as stress and improper use of equipment, and to prioritize the well-being of the sugar glider throughout the training process.

Is Treat Training Effective for Taming and Bonding with Sugar Gliders?

What Handling Skills Should You Develop to Successfully Tame and Bond with Your Sugar Glider?

The Importance of Behavioral Observations when Handling and Caring for your Pet Sugar Glider

Overall, behavioral observations are crucial in properly caring for a pet sugar glider. By regularly observing and noting changes in behavior, adjustments can be made to the sugar gliders environment and interactions to promote positive behavior and prevent stress and health issues. Providing proper enrichment activities, monitoring diet and nutrition, using behavior modification techniques, training communication cues, monitoring health, maintaining a clean and safe cage environment, and recognizing stress indicators are all important aspects of properly caring for a sugar glider.

Common Mistakes And Misconceptions

How To Tame A Sugar Glider (4 Types of Training)

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Do you want to learn how to train a sugar glider?

Youve come to the right place.

These adorable creatures are wild animals and if you dont start training them & bonding with them at an early age, it will be much harder to do it later.

Please keep reading to find out how to bond with your sugar glider, potty-train them and even how to teach them some new tricks.

How To Train a Sugar Glider

Lets start with bonding with your glider, since that sets the groundwork for all other types of training.

1. How To Bond With Your Sugar Glider

Below are some great tips that will make your sugar bear want to spend more time with you.

Let Your Glider Adjust To Your Home First

Before you begin training, you need to make sure your sugar glider is comfortable at your home.

After adoption, give her at least 2 to 3 days to familiarize herself with the place. Also, try to arrange her homecoming for a time when you have a few days off work.

You can also use treats such as yogurt, applesauce, or baby food to entice her. Place these sugar glider treats on your finger and let her come to you.

Theyll not do it on the first day, but eventually, they come around.

At this stage, you can try and talk to her in a soft voice to show her that youre not a threat.

Go near- but not up against- the habitat and speak in a calm voice.

Try reading a childrens book or humming a favorite song. Whatever you do, just sit there and make sure they can see you.

But its not a good idea to pick her up since she has not bonded with you yet and may react by biting.

RECOMMENDED ARTICLE: What is the Lifespan of a Sugar Glider?

Let Her Get to Know Your Scent

One of the ways pets recognize their owners is through their scent. You can wear a piece of cloth and then leave it in her cage.

This gives her the chance to associate the scent with you and get used to having it around.

At this point, you should avoid changing your cologne, perfume, or shampoo. All this does is confuse your sugar gliders, and if they cant recognize you the next time you come to see them, youll be back to square one in the bonding process.

You can also place towels or fleece that smells like you in the bonding pouch when theyre not in it.

As they get used to your scent, theyll feel some comfort every time theyre close to you.

Sit With Your Sugar Glider In A Small Room

Choose a small room, preferably a bathroom, and lock all the places your sugar glider may escape through.

Then, bring your pet into the room while shes still in the pouch.

The goal here is to spend some quality time with your pet (at least an hour) so that she gets used to having you around.

Make sure this room is free from objects that may hurt your pet. Please ensure the toilet lid is closed since she may jump into the toilet bowl as she escapes and drown.

And if you have other pets, such as dogs or cats, dont let them into the room.

All you have to do is open the pouch, place some treats at the opening to entice her to come out, and sit there and watch her.

Once youre done, allow her to get back into the pouch. If she wont do it, you can place treats in the pouch. Create a routine for this activity for a couple of nights.

Use A Bonding Pouch

Another way to make the sugar glider get used to being close to you is to wear the bonding pouch.

These are the pouches that gliders sleep in, and theyll often have strings or shoulder straps. You can wear it for most of the day.

If theyre crabbing (a noise they make when scared) or lunging in the bonding bag, rub them gently, hold them close to your chest, or even hum a tune to calm them down.

Once youre done, you can place them back into the cage. You may realize that your pets may still get aggressive when in the bonding pouch.

This is because the pouch is enclosed, and they may not see you coming. Or theyre freak out every time you take a peek at them when theyre in the pouch.

You can solve this by getting an open environment sugar glider pouches (such as this one) so that even though theyre in the pouch, they can still see you coming and even associate you with your voice.

Check out the video below for an example of crabbing:

React to Biting the Right Way

Is a sugar glider bite dangerous?

Biting is one of their defense mechanisms. So dont be surprised when they bite you during the first few days of bonding.

The best thing to do once they bit is to keep petting and bonding with them.

If you walk away as soon as they bite, youre showing them that you are actually a threat, and biting you is the best way to get rid of you.

Use Treats

Its not always easy to train sugar gliders not to bite, especially when dealing with teenagers.

The best you can do is distract them with treats every time they try to bite.

You can also discourage them by gently blowing some air on the back of their heads.

Most sugar gliders hate that feeling. When offering treats, you can also touch your pets tail.

By now, shes already used to having you around, but she cant stay on you (which is one of the reasons people on this pet) if they cant stand you touching them.

Create a routine

Once you have bonded with your pet, you can form a routine activity that youll be doing with her daily.

This could be tent time with your pet, spending some time in the bathtub (with no water, of course) where you allow her to walk on to you, or wearing the bonding pouch at the same time every day for the same amount of time.

To keep them close to you when bonding, Kimberly on the video below found that bra bonding pouches were very useful.

But if a bra pouch is not an option, you can pet them when theyre still in the zippered bonding bag.

You can also train them to climb and stay on you, as Im going to discuss in the next section.

2. How To Train A Sugar Glider To Stay On You

Having a sugar glider stay on you is one of the best experiences. I mean, you dont expect them to spend all their time in the cage or the pouch.

Below are some tips to get your gliders to climb on you and stay there.

Start with a small and safe room.

The smaller the room, the better. This ensures the sugar glider is close to you at all times and is not tempted to jump off to other areas.

Make sure the room is safe and block all the spaces your pet cant escape through.

Bring your pet into the room.

Sugar gliders spend most of their time in the pouch. So bring the pet while shes in the bag into the room.

Next, entice her to get off the pouch. You can use treats or even call her out. Sugar gliders are nocturnal, so theyll most probably respond better to training at night.

Keep the glider on you at all times.

There are times when the sugar glider will want to jump off from you onto the floor. When she does that, pick her up immediately and place her back on you.

This will show her that its best to stay on you. Another way to do this is to train them that the only time they get to jump is when theyre jumping onto the cage.

When youre getting the pet from the cage, let her climb on you. And then move away from the cage.

You should also define which parts of the body they should be on most of the time, which is mostly your chest, shoulder, head, or arms.

Prevent them from going to your back. If they do, you can slowly move back towards the wall, and theyll have no choice but to climb to your shoulders.

If they go to your back, dont rush your hands to grab them since they may bite. Gently encourage them to move to your arms or shoulders.

Move to a larger room.

Once you manage to keep the pet on you, you can move to a larger room. Ensure the room is safe by removing objects she could jump to and hurt herself.

As I mentioned earlier, if there are other pets in your house, lock them in another room when training.

Always be on the move.

Another way to keep the sugar glider on you is to keep moving. By this time youve moved to a larger room. So you can move around in the room, or even move around your house.

Prevent them from targeting

Sugar gliders are known for jumping from tree to tree by gliding through the air. They do the same in your house when they jump off objects.

What you may not know is that they actually scan for the best place to land before they can jump.

As long as theyre on your arms or shoulder, you can see them targeting.

What you need to do is block them by placing your arm in front of their eyes. If they cant see the target, they cant jump.

3. Bathroom Training A Sugar Glider

I hate to break it to you, but litter box training is not straightforward for sugar gliders.

But their bathroom schedules are very predictable, and once you learn them, you can always know when they need to poo.

Just like people, sugar gliders often go to the bathroom as soon as they wake up. This could be in the morning (since theyre nocturnal, their morning time is our nighttime).

In most cases, theyll also want to go to the bathroom when you wake them up during the day for bonding time.

As soon as your pet wakes up, hold her over some paper towels. This will stimulate her to go to the bathroom on the paper towels.

Use unscented baby wipes to wipe the private area until she releases all the urine and feces. Another way to stimulate your pet to go to the bathroom is to keep her moving.

Place some baby wet pipes on both of your hands and create a treadmill, where you move the glider from one hand to another.

Once youre confident shes done, use the baby wipes to help her finish up.

Sugar gliders take 5 to 7 minutes to empty the urine and feces, and youll have at least 2 to 4 hours before you have to go through this process again.

If she starts moving around in your pocket, then she needs to go to the bathroom.

Get her out of the pouch, and use the treadmill and wiping technique to help her empty all the contents. For very small animals, they sure do poop a lot.

But each sugar glider has its own capacity. Eventually, youll learn her capacity, her habit, and the best way to help her go to the bathroom.

Potty Training

I know I said it might be impossible, but its worth a try. Below are some steps;

• Place a litter box on one of the corners and place some of the sugar gliders feces in it.
• Every time your pet uses the litter box, reward it with a treat.
• If she drops the feces on the flow of the cage, pick it up and pace it in the litter box.
• Use paper pulp, shredded paper, or grass pellets as litter. Avoid using cat litter since they may eat it.

4. Teaching Your Sugar Glider Tricks

Once you have fully bonded with your pet, you can start training them how to come when called, how to jump, or any other tricks you may have in mind.

Get A Clicker

Clicker training is one of the most effective methods of training pets, including sugar gliders.

The clickers make a clicking sound that lets the pet know whatever theyre doing is okay.

You can order clickers (such as this one) for less than $10 or a clicking ballpoint pen.

Choose a small room

Choose a small room to make sure the sugar glider is not distracted.

As mentioned earlier, you can use your bathroom or the bathtub, but make sure the toilet lids are closed, and the drains are plugged.

A non-slip mat will also make the bathroom floors safe for you and your pet.

Once you get the pet in the room, allow how to explore the room until theyre interested in what youre doing.

Associate the click with a treat

Make clicking sounds with the clicker, and offer a treat at the same time. Eventually, theyll learn that something good always follows a treat.

They will even look forward to it every time you make a clicking noise. Some of the goodies you can offer your pet include dried vegetables and fruits, cheerios, dried meat, or yogurt.

Train The Sugar Glider to Come To You

Since youre the only one in the room, your sugar glider will eventually turn her attention towards you.

Once she does, make a trail of treats towards you while clicking every time you want to place the treat.

At this point, you can even use command words such as come. Use the same cue words over and over to make sure she understands it.

Teach your sugar glider to touch stuff

Place a ball at one place in the room, and click and treat every time your sugar glider moves towards the ball.

Repeat the process, and when she gets used to it, take it a notch higher by clicking and treating only when she touches the ball.

You can also use words such as touch to draw her attention towards the ball.

Teach Your Sugar Glider Hoop Jumping

Hold a hoop in front of your pet, and click and treat every time she moves towards the hoop and jumps to the other side.

Once she gets it, lift the hoop higher, and use words such as jump.

Teach Your Sugar Glider to Jump

If youd like to see the gliding in action, you can place the sugar glider on a shelf and hold a treat in your hand.

Call out to her while making a clicking sound, and shell jump onto your hand.

At this point, youll have taught her command words such as jump, and this will show that she can respond to them.

Check the amazing video below.

5. Be Patient and Consistent

Sugar gliders arent the easiest pets to train. So, be patient if they dont seem to learn a trick or bond with you the first time.

Be consistent in your routine, repeat the same training techniques repeatedly, and dont be afraid to back to square one.

You can use clicker training to teach them any trick, including things that they already do but want them to do on command.

Just follow the click and treat method to engage them.

A few extra tips;

Try group training

Its easier to train sugar gliders as a group.

They enjoy when there are other sugar gliders around, and your bonding techniques will be more effective.

According to World Animal Protection, sugar gliders are very social animals, and they thrive in groups when in the wild.

However, be careful when placing them together since sometimes theyll bond with each other and see you as a threat.

Never punish!

Dont lash out at your sugar gliders or punish them if they bite or dont follow instructions.

They dont understand negative reinforcement, and it will be more challenging to tame them after that.

Consider their personalities

Sugar gliders have different personalities.

Taming them involves understanding their personalities, what they like (treats and handling technique), and what they dont like.

How To Train A Sugar Glider FAQs

Are Sugar Gliders Easy To Train?

When compared to dogs or cats, its much more challenging to tame a sugar glider. But with the proper bonding techniques, you can get them to trust you enough, making it possible to teach them other tricks.

How Long Does It Take To Train A Sugar Glider?

Training/taming a sugar glider can take days or weeks depending on how much time you spend with them each day, their age, and what youre trying to teach them.

Can you domesticate sugar gliders?

Sugar gliders are wild animals, so domesticating is an overstatement. Sure, you can tame them and teach them a few tricks, but their habits, diet needs, habitat needs, and health needs are similar to those in the wild.

Conclusion

And there you have it. You can tame a sugar glider of any age.

The first step is learning how to introduce sugar gliders to your scent, voice, and get used to having you around.

Remember, just because they looked sociable with the breeder doesnt mean theyll be all over you when you get home.

Once you have bonded with your pet, you can start training them tricks using positive reinforcement.

Patience and consistency are key when taming sugar gliders. Youll realize that you have to do the same things over and over even when theyve mastered the trick.

Do you have other tips on how to train a sugar glider? Share with us below!

Barry Stingmore

Barry Stingmore is a British content writer living in Fuerteventura, Spain. An animal lover at heart, he shares his home with a dog and four rescue cats and has a passion for writing about animals big and small.

Barry loves finding answers to your animal-related questions, the more research involved the better! You can rely on him to find the facts.

Find him on FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND LinkedinRead his latest ARTICLES.Find more about him HERE.